Garden Railway Dreaming.

Some screenshots of the new terminus on the garden railway line. I've shamelessly borrowed NSWGR station buildings and other Australian assets for use as light railway buildings. The wagons are from Steve Flander's Irish range of rolling stock. The engines I'm using on the line are from Paulz Trainz from his 'Other British Locos (NG)' range of which I have an indecent number in both 3ft and 3ft 6in gauges.

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This is awesomely cool! I love this idea! I can imagine a garden party back in the day with the trains running around the garden.
 
Thanks Forester. I couldn't have done it without Ray's newly released 'G' scale assets. I think I can call the garden and its railway finished now and I'm thinking about uploading it to the DLS fairly soon. It will be without rolling stock though since what I use on my own personal copy of the layout isn't on the DLS as far as I'm aware.
 
Yes, I'm really impressed too with what you have achieved with my very limited (at present) assets. I have a page of possibles which I scribbled down yesterday in an odd moment. They will all be scaled up versions of my own already uploaded content, of course, or items made for the purpose.

I'm going to try track already raised to the required 6 metres later but this neans of course that any "bulk replacement" of existing track will (if successful) float 6m above track already laid! But you've obviously managed to cope with the oddity so far. Still, there's always the possibility of another garden ... I must have a go sometime - it's a long time since I was able to do any "real world" gardening.

And then there's 0 gauge and N gauge to think about ...

Incidentally, I also made a good few models some time ago in 1:12 scale, ie. models which are 1 inch to the foot in Trainz, with a view to making a model village for Trainz tourists to walk around. I don't think these were ever uploaded. I suppose 1:76 scale models in Trainz could also be made, but could they be seen?

A final thought - maybe my track on viaducts (quite an extensive system) could be used in the garden, too, either on it's own or to link sections?

Ray
 
I've made a dummy track raised 6m above base in GMax and tested it with the non-track version of the track base, the surface of which is already at 6m. Works perfectly! So all that remains to do is to make the track...

Disadvantage - this will only work with a purpose-made track. Anyone wishing to use a different track would need to riase it by 6m, as before. I can't see that "useadjoiningtracktype" would work as that would be at base level.

So it would be up to the user to choose! I'll have a look at some garden railway images to see what is normally used.

Ray
 
A garden environment might actually suit some of the more complex models, particularly where there is substantial elevation difference. Thinking of my "Proto-Model" concept, the Albula Line spirals or (more obscure) big hill climb from Izvor on the Ohrid Line come to mind.
 
I've made a dummy track raised 6m above base in GMax and tested it with the non-track version of the track base, the surface of which is already at 6m. Works perfectly! So all that remains to do is to make the track...

Disadvantage - this will only work with a purpose-made track. Anyone wishing to use a different track would need to riase it by 6m, as before. I can't see that "useadjoiningtracktype" would work as that would be at base level.

So it would be up to the user to choose! I'll have a look at some garden railway images to see what is normally used.

Ray


Move the attachments on the base to the required height, then use adjoining track type will work, same as for viaducts etc.
 
I used Pencil's 35lb 3ft gauge track on the garden line and it was joy to use since his track is a lot more flexible than some other kinds on the DLS. It really wasn't difficult at all to zip out a length of track on the lawn and click the spline points to raise them to 6.00m. Moving them into position wasn't a problem at all and once Ray updated the track base to no longer grab the track it just got easier.
Really laying the track was no more difficult than placing any of the scenic models I used to set the scene on the track bases since they had to be raised to 6.00m as well.

For the 'removable' bridges over the paths I used the wooden Howe viaduct with planked deck spline model. It's actually a road bridge, but works fine as a railway bridge as we used to have a lot of railway bridges just like that here in New Zealand. I'm using a no cars region of my own devising centred on Norfolk (where else?) so cars popping up out of thin air on the bridge aren't a problem. I used a no ballast 3ft gauge wooden sleepered track on the bridges, but I can't remember who the maker was. It only has to run straight so I wasn't worried about flexibility.

Most garden railways these days seem to be either using Peco products or else traditional wooden sleepered hand laid track. For older lines my choice would be an unballasted track with fairly chunky looking sleepers. My joy would be complete if a content creator made old fashion wooden sleepered 3 rail track, but I guess that might have to remain a dream.
 
A garden environment might actually suit some of the more complex models, particularly where there is substantial elevation difference. Thinking of my "Proto-Model" concept, the Albula Line spirals or (more obscure) big hill climb from Izvor on the Ohrid Line come to mind.
I've seen a good few pictures of garden railways laid on sloping sites Vern so that would certainly create opportunities for dramatic bridges. With my line I kept it simple with a flat site since it was all in the nature of an experiment, but who knows what I might try later on if I really catch the garden railway bug. I had planned on building a garden railway where I'm living now, but narcolepsy put paid to that, so it's nice to be able to build a virtual garden line as a substitute.
 
I'm using a no cars region of my own devising centred on Norfolk

We do have a few cars in Norfolk! - not so many at present. Even when we lived on a main route to the coast (1957-66) we had to leave home by about 8.00 am on a summer Saturday to get onto the main road. (Sorry, I know you weren't implying ...)

Most garden railways these days seem to be either using Peco products or else traditional wooden sleepered hand laid track. For older lines my choice would be an unballasted track with fairly chunky looking sleepers. My joy would be complete if a content creator made old fashion wooden sleepered 3 rail track, but I guess that might have to remain a dream.

The wooden sleepered unballasted track is what I was thinking of. Three rail? no doubt possible. But I haven't made any track for a long time, so we'll have to see what happens.

I've seen a good few pictures of garden railways laid on sloping sites Vern so that would certainly create opportunities for dramatic bridges.

My back garden when we moved here in 1966 would have been a good prototype for this - six feet below the terrace which was at house level, then sloping steeply in every direction until I terraced part of it to create a lawn

Ray
 
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We do have a few cars in Norfolk! - not so many at present. Even when we lived on a main route to the coast (1957-66) we had to leave home by about 8.00 am on a summer Saturday to get onto the main road. (Sorry, I know you weren't implying ...)

The region I'm using is for the 1880's so there would definitely be no cars Ray :hehe:
All my various regions I've uploaded to the DLS are centred on Norfolk which isn't so surprising really since that's the location that I tend to represent when I build my layouts. I should make a NG garden railway one since the region controls the kind of default point lever that gets used.
 
Yes, I had the same problem, of course, and the rolling stock was hidden by the track base! It's all experimemtal stuff and I'm not sure that it's possible to make track which is already at +6m - but I'll give it a go. It will be fairly "cheap and cheerful" track if I succeed, but it will be very small in relation to the overall garden.

I'm guessing this is four baseboards - correct?

Ray

No Ray, the garden is built on a single Trainz baseboard. I was going to make it bigger, but then I thought I'd see what was possible on a single baseboard.
 
What a joy to find this thread,
Thaks Annie and Ray for reviving this forgotten method.
My mind is working overtime now!

My mind is working overtime too Graham. This was just an experiment to see what was possible and now I've been well and truly bitten by the bug and I want to try out even more ideas.
 
What a joy to find this thread,
Thaks Annie and Ray for reviving this forgotten method.
My mind is working overtime now!

I'm very pleased to hear that, Graham, and look forward to seeing your garden.

No Ray, the garden is built on a single Trainz baseboard. I was going to make it bigger, but then I thought I'd see what was possible on a single baseboard.

That's certainly impressive for a single baseboard, Annie. I must have a go sometime at using my own creations, other than just for testing.

My mind is working overtime too Graham.

It was my fingers this morning as I was trying to refine the garden railway track - flat bottom, rather chunky looking, bright rail top to show it was being used, but the rest looking a bit weathered. I think I'm there, but the proof will come when I test it! I'm doing two versions, one at ground level, the other raised to fit on my track bases ie. 6 metres (Trainz) up in the air. But are my calculations correct ...

Ray
 
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